


Too Daze Gone

by jukeboxhound



Series: Black Magic Woman [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Bisexual Female Character, F/F, Femslash, Humor, Pre-Slash, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 02:33:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxhound/pseuds/jukeboxhound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aeris is a witch, a sort of go-to advisor and supplier to hunters of all types and skills that drift in and out.  It gets rather lonely after a while, though, with only a stubborn rhododendron and a few vinyls for constant company, so she's going to take any chance she can to get back on the road and get to know this Tifa better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Daze Gone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chofi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chofi/gifts).



> • Sort-of prequel to _[god put a song on my palm](http://archiveofourown.org/works/175578)_ , same ‘verse as _[This Isn’t Going to Wash Out](http://archiveofourown.org/works/221138)_  
>  • Prompt #38: Challenge, from 100_situations on LJ.
> 
> This was originally going to be a complete story for the femslash_bigbang, but the community seemed to die before the challenge was ever finished. This is a oneshot in itself but meant to be part of a series expanding both on a FF7/SPN fusion world and an Aeris/Tifa relationship, since there's a sad lack of femmeslash in every fandom.
> 
> Title from the Billy Squier song.

 

* * *

 

Aeris has her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face, glaring at the rhododendron in its big earthenware pot.  The greenhouse is humid, more so than the late Southern evening outside, and the rhododendron’s stubbornness is getting increasingly less charming.

 

“How many times have I told you to keep your leaves to yourself?” she scolds.  “The others have just as much right to their pots as you do to yours.”

 

The rhododendron sits there.

 

“Yes, I know you’re a creeper thing, but really, it’s just rude.  Stop trying to crawl into everyone else’s pots.”

 

The rhododendron sits there.  Stubbornly.

 

Aeris is about to pull out the big guns when she hears a heavy _clunk_ somewhere, muffled and kind of earthy, and at the same time she hears something like a bell tinkling gently in her ear.  Frowning, she gives the rhododendron a sharp, “Don’t you go anywhere, we’re not finished with this,” and heads back into the main house.  It’s quiet, except for the Billie Holiday record playing softly near the fireplace.  Aeris turns it off, listens as hard as she can, and about twenty seconds later there’s a steady, repetitive _shushing_ coming from somewhere under the house.

 

“Hmph,” she huffs, because if a rhododendron determined for a path of greenhouse domination weren’t enough there’s now something shuffling around under _her_ house, which just isn’t _done_ , and one of her wards is still tinkling unhappily in her head.  Unfortunately she left her staff somewhere (in the upstairs bathroom, maybe, or the old playground in the backyard, and she should really put a tracking charm on the thing), so she pats her hair to make sure her ribbon is still there and marches to the basement door.

 

The _shushing_ gets a little louder.  It sounds like someone digging.

 

The house is an old thing, a good solid Southern ranch place with a wrap-around porch and a root cellar sunk underneath its sturdy walls.  Aeris keeps her collection of seeds down there, safe and neatly organized in the coolness, along with a few more questionable things, and if something got around to mucking about with that, well, things might get a little more interesting than is really healthy.

 

Clasping her crystal necklace, Aeris goes silently down the stairs into the cellar and is surprised to see a flashlight lying flat on a shelf, pointed outwards so that it manages to illuminate most of the cellar.  It’s also lighting up a woman in a brown miniskirt and white tank top, strong muscle flexing in her arms as she digs doggedly into the packed earth with a worn shovel.  After a moment she pauses, leans up to wipe the sweat from her brow with the back of a gloved hand, arches her back to pop her spine.  A cowboy hat rests against her shoulder blades, hanging off a leather cord looped around the front of her throat.

 

Aeris raises an eyebrow, crosses her arms, and silently leans back against the banister as the woman keeps digging.  A few minutes pass before the phone upstairs in the kitchen starts ringing.  The woman jumps, reflexively turning around, and then jumps again with a yelp when she sees Aeris. 

 

“This isn’t what it looks like,” the woman says hurriedly. 

 

“So you’re _not_ trespassing and digging in my cellar floor?”  She looks like a deer caught in the headlights.  Aeris waves a hand.  “It’s all right.  Keep doing what you’re doing, I don’t mind watching.”

 

The woman’s brow furrows with confusion before a blush suddenly blooms over her cheeks (nice cheekbones, too, Aeris notes), vivid despite the crappy light of the flashlight.  She opens her mouth, closes it, fiddles with the handle of the shovel, and finally manages, “Um.  You…aren’t going to ask why I’m trespassing and digging a hole in your cellar?”

 

“Well, I _am_ rather curious,” Aeris admits, “but I figure if you were going to kill me you would’ve done so while I was arguing with my rhododendron.  Plus, my hedgehogs would’ve stopped you if you meant me any harm.”

 

The woman blinks at her a few times.  Aeris isn’t really bothered by that.  She gets it a lot.

 

“…Right.  So, uh, I’ll just finish up here and be out of your hair.”

 

“I don’t suppose you’re trying to dig up Richard?”

 

“’Richard’?  Wait, you know there’s someone buried here?”  The woman’s getting noticeably tense, her free hand curling into a fist.  Aeris can tell that she’s capable of some serious damage.

 

“Richard was an anatomy skeleton,” Aeris explains gently.  “I’m guessing you’re a hunter?  Another hunter tried to put him down when he started wreaking havoc on the poor forensics students down in Camden, but his bones wouldn’t burn, so I took them.”

 

“The bones wouldn’t burn?” she repeats incredulously.  Aeris shrugs lightly.

 

“They were cursed.  I haven’t been able to figure out how to get it off yet, so I keep him down here in a cursebox where he can’t hurt anyone.  Would you like some lemonade?  I made some cookies yesterday too, I had a feeling I was going to get a visitor soon.”

 

“Okay,” the woman says slowly.

 

“Aeris Gainsborough,” she smiles.

 

“Um, Tifa Lockhart.”

 

Aeris had known that the moment she’d laid eyes on her, but people are generally uncomfortable when she tells them that sort of thing.  “Nice to meet you.  Come up to the kitchen, but don’t poke anything, the hedgehogs might get irritated.”

 

“Right,” Tifa says again.

 

…

 

Tifa Lockhart is a native of the Midwest, an accomplished kickboxer, and has a history of volunteering at environmental activism agencies between hunts.  Not that Tifa actually says any of this.  Aeris pours the lemonade and just knows.

 

“So, what brought you here?” Aeris asks conversationally.  Her house isn’t exactly located on a downtown strip.

 

“Got a tip,” Tifa says vaguely.  “I do apologize, though.  Didn’t know you were, um.”

 

“Clued in?” Aeris supplies, referring to the small circle of people who know that movies like _Jeepers Creepers_ are actually documentaries.  “Nah, it’s fine, no harm done.”

 

There’s a lull in the conversation.  Aeris openly watches Tifa while Tifa tries to surreptitiously look around Aeris’ kitchen: clean white tile floor, polished sandstone countertops, a heavy oak dining table with shallow scars from chopping knives and faint stains from various herbs and vegetables.  The walls are covered with hand-done mosaics of smooth sea-glass and pebbles that shine in the sunlight coming through the large windows, though Aeris doesn’t think Tifa realizes most of the abstract designs aren’t abstract at all but a number of sigils and wards.

 

“You must’ve lived here for a while,” Tifa observes.

 

“A few years.  I loved San Francisco, but big cities are just too big sometimes.”  Tifa clearly doesn’t know what to say to that and takes another sip of lemonade, and Aeris adds, “Besides, it’s easier for hunters to see me when I’m not at an extreme end of the country.  Ergo, Tennessee.”

 

“You said a hunter left, uh, Richard with you.  What do you do?”

 

“Most people call me a witch,” Aeris tells her cheerfully, and hides her grin behind her glass when Tifa chokes a little.  “Well, minus the whole demonic soul-selling thing.  That’s just irresponsible.  Gives the rest of us a bad name.”

 

“A bad name,” Tifa echoes faintly.

 

“It’s annoying.  Every few months a hunter decides to show up with an exorcism, and I’m like, really?  Of course nothing ever happens, and then they accuse me of random things like it’s _The Crucible_ all over again.  Makes me wonder how many of them actually know what they’re doing or if Kunsel’s finally gone off the deep end.”

 

Aeris can tell that Tifa’s trying to find a diplomatic way to ask what a witch without a demonic patron actually does and takes pity on her.  “It’s mostly just harmless things, you know.  A few potions, some protective charms, things like that.  Well, on the days I can keep the rhododendron from going Napoleon on the rest of my garden.”

 

Tifa nods her head like this is something she hears everyday, and she _is_ a hunter, after all – a hunter with a mind that feels like a cool pond on a warm day and legs up to _there_ , not that Aeris has been sneaking a look or anything.

 

It turns out that Tifa had left her old Toyota truck half a mile down the dirt road on the off-chance that someone, or something, would’ve heard her coming.  Aeris wraps up some peanut butter cookies in a tie-dyed handkerchief that secretly has a Keep Tasty-Fresh blessing on it and convinces Tifa to take it.  After she leaves, Aeris stands in the middle of her living room and quietly thinks that it was nice to have some human company while it lasted.

 

…

 

Several months pass before Aeris sees Tifa again.  She’s managed a truce with the rhododendron and gotten it a bigger pot and still hasn’t remembered to put a tracking charm on her staff.  She finds it in the chimney flu, and once in the garden shed under a large bag of salt.  Hunters stop by every so often for one thing or another, and she gets into a debate with Kunsel through Ouija boards, because phones are inconvenient, on the best way to banish fairies, which reaffirms her belief that even people with a library of occult texts and fluency in several dead languages still rarely know shit about the spiritual world.  She gets a small but steady flow of customers, normal people just looking for things like amulets (easy and actually kind of fun to make), salves and poultices (only ever as expensive as the materials themselves, she isn’t about to profit on people actually hurting), or love spells (ha, no).

 

Aeris is in the middle of brewing a healing balm in her kitchen when Tifa shows up on her porch.  Her wards tinkle in her ear a few minutes before she hears polite knocking on the edge of her screen door.

 

“Come in,” she calls, “and mind the gap.”  She’s been reading some of Neil Gaiman’s work lately.  The man’s developed a bit of an ego and gets a lot wrong, but he gets even more right, which makes her suspicious about how much he actually knows.  It’s one of the few things she and Kunsel agree on.

 

Tifa clomps over the threshold in her heavy boots and takes off her cowboy hat as she comes hesitantly into the kitchen.  It smells like olive oil and rosemary and sage, and also beeswax, which Aeris is shaving into thin slivers and carefully melting into a smooth pasty mess in an old pot.  The herbs have been steeping in the olive oil on low heat for a couple days now and the oil is almost ready to be mixed with the wax, thickened into a proper balm.

 

“Bookcase in the living room, third shelf from the top, fourth book from the left,” Aeris says.

 

“What?”

 

“That book on nature spirits you’re looking for.  Tricky things, you’d better be careful.  Worse than fairies sometimes.”

 

“How did you – “

 

“You think pretty loudly, which isn’t a bad thing, just…a thing, like having brown hair or nice legs.”  She smiles to herself, not having to turn around to know that Tifa’s already blushing.  “Oh.  Hello, by the way, I’m sorry.”  Aeris puts down her knife and wipes her hands on a rag, finally meeting Tifa’s eyes with a smile that can’t help but widen.  “How’re you?”

 

“Don’t you already know?” Tifa asks wryly.

 

“Half of what people think it means to be psychic is just being very observant.  Like Sherlock Holmes.”  In a pink sundress and hair ribbon.  “And I’d rather hear it from you.”

 

“I’m fine.  How are you?” is the obviously automatic response.  That kind of trained social courtesy is never very interesting, but Aeris lets it slide.

 

“I’ve manage to placate the rhododendron for a while, but I’m afraid the hydrangea is acting up now.  It thinks it should be in the center of the greenhouse where everyone can admire it and it’s irritating the roses.  I swear, it’s like a group of teenagers in there sometimes.  Or the preliminaries to World War Three.”

 

Tifa’s fidgeting with the hem of her shirt distractedly.  Aeris gets the lemonade out of the fridge and pours two glasses, asking, “So tell me about your current hunt.”

 

“There’s been a run of weird weather patterns in this one town, like five minutes’ worth of a thunderstorm or blizzard before it’s blue skies again.  A couple fires, too.  Two people have already died and seven others hospitalized.”

 

“What makes you think nature spirits?”

 

“The fact that these incidents are all direct results of natural phenomena.  I haven’t seen anything that’d be more like curses, like unexplained deaths or stuff you’d think was physically impossible.”

 

Aeris hums in agreement as she gets back up to turn off the heat under the pot of herbs and olive oil.  “Yeah, sounds like you might be right.  Just be careful, nature spirits aren’t exactly the type to go easy on mortals or make deals like fairies.”

 

“I’m not afraid,” says Tifa, a little defensively, a little more intensely than Aeris expected.  Aeris is tempted to point out that fear is a healthy human reaction when facing amoral personifications of elemental forces, but instead she just says, “At least let me make up a few things for you before you take my book and go.”

 

She wraps a leaf each from oak, ash, and thorn in a scrap of white fabric as a charm against being burned or electrocuted, and throws in a little figure of Freya.  It never hurts to have a fierce goddess on one’s side, and although she really does try to keep her mind (and observations) to herself she sometimes gets the feeling that a mother’s protection isn’t exactly a part of Tifa’s arsenal.

 

…

 

The third time Aeris sees Tifa, she already has company.  It’s always a joy to see Zack, and Cloud is as solemn and adorable as ever, and Sephiroth’s still a puzzle she’s subtly trying to piece together.  If nothing else, Zack always did have good taste in lovers; she of all people would know, after all.

 

They’re not there for books, or amulets, or curse-cracking, and none of them are bleeding out all over her clean kitchen floor.  Instead Cloud is out in the garden shed fixing her lawnmower like the mechanically-inclined sweetheart he is, Sephiroth is obediently keeping an eye on the pots that always seem to be simmering on the stove, and Zack is unashamedly sprawling at the kitchen table with a beer in hand and a happy, lazy grin on his face.

 

“So this monster thing is all up in Sephiroth’s face, right, and Cloud comes in with the shotgun like he’s freakin’ John Wayne.  The monster spun around and I swear Sephiroth was channeling the Terminator, he put his sword right through the fucker’s throat, which got blood all over me and the poor girl I was trying to untie – “

 

“That jacket was a monstrosity anyway,” says Sephiroth.

 

“Says the urban cowboy with the leather duster,” Zack snipes back, and Aeris giggles behind her hand.  “I ended up having to shield the girl with my poor abused body so she didn’t see Sephiroth hacking up the monster like a deranged serial killer.”

 

“The head has to be removed to kill the creature,” says Sephiroth, his tone suggesting that this is something he’s been repeating at least as often as Zack tells the story.

 

“Except it took you thirty-seven whacks to do it and you tore off several tentacles in the process.”

 

“It was _not_ thirty-seven.”

 

“Yeah, more like forty or fifty.  Do we need to get the Masamune replaced?  Give it to the Salvation Army, let some poor mother use it as a glorified butter knife?”

 

The screen door creaks open.  Cloud, who couldn’t have heard anything from outside, enters the kitchen with a streak of oil on his face and says without prompting, “Zack, leave Sephiroth alone.  Sephiroth, ignore him.”

 

Zack looks completely blindsided, and Aeris nearly hurts herself laughing.  She’s still laughing when Sephiroth, who’s sulking but would never admit it, tilts his head and announces, “Someone’s here.”

 

“What?”

 

“A truck just pulled up.”

 

When they all pause and listen, they hear the slam of a car door and the measured pace of someone in heavy boots.  Aeris suddenly grins and calls out, “Come in!”

 

And so when Aeris sees Tifa for the third time, the woman is covered in dust and what looks like a couple oak leaves stuck in her hair.  It’s too late to warn her that there’s company clogging up the kitchen and that Zack Fair, who warrants a warning all on his own, is included in that company, but before Aeris can introduce anyone Cloud bursts out with, “Tifa?”

 

“Cloud?”  Tifa blinks several times in apparent confusion, which then melts into something softer and familiar.  “Cloud, what’re you doing here?”

 

“Visiting Aeris,” he replies with a lopsided smile, and, wow, Aeris often forgets how _small_ the hunting community really is, except she gets the feeling that Tifa and Cloud share more than just a career in fake IDs and illegal firearms.  Aeris senses something that could as easily be _lovefriendsfamily_ as _sorrowfearregret_.

 

“Tifa,” she interrupts smoothly, “since you already seem to know Cloud, this is Zack and Sephiroth.  They’re the ones that brought Richard to me.  Guys, Tifa Lockhart.”

 

“A pleasure to meet you,” Sephiroth says as he shakes her hand with all the formality of a former military officer, which Zack then promptly interrupts with a wide grin and cheerful, “Hey, Tifa, nice to meet you.  So before you leave, I expect a report on every embarrassing moment in Cloud’s life that you know about and then whatever else you can plausibly make up.”

 

“ _Zack_ ,” Cloud groans. 

 

Tifa looks overwhelmed by the unexpected company and Aeris feels a little guilty when she can see that Tifa has either just finished a hunt or is in the middle of one, but Tifa pulls herself together with a friendly smile and a wink.  “Yessir, reconvening at fifteen-hundred.”

 

 Zack begins, “Perhaps a _debriefing_ would be more – “ before Cloud clamps a grimy bare hand over his mouth and growls a flat, “No.”

 

“Our apologies, Ms. Lockhart.  We try not to take him out in public too often.”

 

Sephiroth says it with such a straight face that it takes Aeris a moment to realize what he actually said, and then she has to clamp her own hands over her mouth to keep the laughter in.  She asks all four of them to stay for a late lunch-slash-early dinner (“And I’m sorry, Cloud, but we don’t eat Nibelheim pie in this house and I’m not entirely sure it’s even legal to eat those parts of an animal in this country anyway”), but the three men claim they want to get into the next town by nightfall so they can get started tracking down a bugbear.  Tifa only came by for some information.  Aeris sighs, herds the men out of the house, and asks Tifa, “What can I do for you?”

 

“I apologize if I drove them off,” says Tifa, chewing on her bottom lip and making it redden.

 

“Oh, no, don’t worry, it’s fine,” Aeris reassures her, although she’s not entirely sure that’s true.  Cloud had looked so solemn – well, more so than usual – and every line of Tifa’s body is still broadcasting tension.  “So, what’s up?”

 

“I’m not sure what to do,” Tifa sighs as she sits at the dining table.  Aeris crosses her arms and leans a hip against the table after casting a quick look over at the pots on the stove.  “There aren’t any local legends to give me an idea what kind of spirit this might be, although I reckon it’s several spirits because of the variety of incidents, or it could be actual elementals.  But it could also be witchcraft, which means I’m looking for a person, or it could be some combo of the two even though I didn’t think it was particularly easy to control nature spirits.  Or elementals.”

 

“About as easy as telling a starving tiger what to do,” Aeris says, somewhat dryly.  “The best you can do is ask very nicely and then hide in a bunker.”

 

“I’m not sure what to do,” Tifa admits quietly.  She sounds so tired.

 

“You said two people had died and some others put in the hospital.  They have anything in common besides living in the same town?”

 

“That’s it, as far as I can tell.  The two who died were a middle-aged white couple, but there’s been a young black guy hospitalized.  The victims have been between twenty and forty except for a seven-year-old kid.  All of them are generally middle-class, but most of the town is anyway, so it seems like sex, age, race, and economic class aren’t part of the equation.”

 

At least whatever’s going on seems equal opportunity, Aeris muses.  Of course, a nature spirit or an elemental were unlikely to care about those sorts of things.  She considers the Ouija board sitting in the living room cabinet, but she _really_ doesn’t like using the damn thing for contacting non-human entities, prefers being able to see exactly who or what she’s talking to.  There’s a copper scrying bowl lying around the house somewhere, but she’s never been much of a diviner.  Plants and people, things she can touchand see and hear, _that’s_ her kind of magic.

 

“I tried calling Kunsel, but he didn’t have much else to offer.”

 

“Of course not, Kunsel wouldn’t know a hedgehog from an elemental if it jumped up and bit him on the nose,” Aeris huffs, winning a bit of surprised laughter.  “I swear, you get people who know magic’s real, they act like it follows proper rules, and then they get confused when they try to light a candle and the whole house burns down.”

 

“It doesn’t have rules?”

 

“Of course it does, just not ourrules.”  What was the hunting community comingto?

 

Tifa asks, “Any ideas?”

 

The kitchen is quiet except for the simmering of herbs on the stove and a few jays squawking outside.  Aeris had forgotten to turn off the Robert Johnson record when the guys showed up and the strain of “Crossroad Blues” drifts faintly through the house, curling into all the empty spaces with no one but Aeris , and for a little while Tifa, to listen.  After Tifa leaves, Aeris will put on something else, maybe Clapton or Feist, while she finishes replenishing her stock of cures and potions for the hunters that pass her way.  Then she’ll water the plants, try to explain one more time why garden domination is a bad idea, and go to bed to start all over again in the morning.

 

“As a matter of fact, I _do_ have an idea,” she says slowly.  “Wait here.”

 

Ten minutes later, she’s back in the kitchen with a duffel at her feet, a backpack slung over one shoulder, and her staff in hand.  Tifa’s staring at her and Aeris realizes that she probably looks like the offspring of a liberal college student and Gandalf.  Tifa still has a couple oak leaves caught in her hair.  “Ready?”

 

“What on earth are you doing?”

 

“Coming with you.”

 

“Miss Gainsborough – “

 

“Aeris.”

 

“ _Aeris_ ,” she echoes, probably because Tifa only wants to fight one battle at a time, what a wise woman, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

 

“Why not?”  Aeris is honestly confused.

 

“You’re not a hunter.”

 

“You’re right, I’m not.  I’m much more useful than that.”

 

“But – “

 

“If you’re really that opposed to me coming with you, I won’t,” Aeris tells her quietly.  “It’s your hunt, your truck, and your call.  But I’m a witch, remember?  I’m not helpless, and since you’re describing what sounds like either magic or rogue nature spirits I’m probably your most valuable resource right now.”

 

Tifa bites her lip again – must be a nervous habit and Aeris has to tell herself that now is _not_ the time to get distracted – and admits, “I’m not used to working with anyone.”

 

“Then you can start practicing.”

 

Aeris is rather surprised to find herself holding her breath while Tifa looks at her intently, hadn’t realized how much this suddenly means to her.  She lets out it with a quiet whoosh when Tifa gives her half a smile and says, “Yeah, I reckon we can give it a shot.”

 

Aeris’ smile is brilliant.


End file.
